Undated photos show Art O’Keefe’s airplane going over the side of the carrier while training as he was preparing to head to Guadalcanal. The plane sank, but O’Keefe and his gunner were uninjured. Courtesy photos

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Undated photos show Art O’Keefe’s airplane going over the side of the carrier while training as he was preparing to head to Guadalcanal. The plane sank, but O’Keefe and his gunner were uninjured. Courtesy photos

July 30, 2012-CORONADO, CA| Some of the items from Arthur F. O&apos;Keefe&apos;s time as a Marine Corps pilot during World War II, collected by his son, Michael O&apos;Keefe. |Howard Lipin /UT San Diego). Mandatory to Credit HOWARD LIPIN/U-T San Diego/ZUMA PRESS, U-T San Diego

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July 30, 2012-CORONADO, CA| Some of the items from Arthur F. O'Keefe's time as a Marine Corps pilot during World War II, collected by his son, Michael O'Keefe. |Howard Lipin /UT San Diego). Mandatory to Credit HOWARD LIPIN/U-T San Diego/ZUMA PRESS, U-T San Diego

Some of the items from Arthur F. O’Keefe’s time as a Marine Corps aviator with a dive bomber squadron during World War II,
collected by his son, Michael O’Keefe, himself a retired Navy aviator. Howard Lipin • U-T

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Some of the items from Arthur F. O’Keefe’s time as a Marine Corps aviator with a dive bomber squadron during World War II,
collected by his son, Michael O’Keefe, himself a retired Navy aviator. Howard Lipin • U-T

July 30, 2012-CORONADO, CA| Some of the items from Arthur F. O&apos;Keefe&apos;s time as a Marine Corps pilot during World War II, collected by his son, Michael O&apos;Keefe. |Howard Lipin /UT San Diego). Mandatory to C&apos;redit HOWARD LIPIN/U-T San Diego/ZUMA PRESS, U-T San Diego

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July 30, 2012-CORONADO, CA| Some of the items from Arthur F. O'Keefe's time as a Marine Corps pilot during World War II, collected by his son, Michael O'Keefe. |Howard Lipin /UT San Diego). Mandatory to C'redit HOWARD LIPIN/U-T San Diego/ZUMA PRESS, U-T San Diego

July 30, 2012-CORONADO, CA| Michael O’Keefe with some of his father, Arthur F. O’keefe’s memorabilia from his time as a Marine Corps pilot during World War II. |Howard Lipin /UT San Diego). Mandatory to Credit HOWARD LIPIN/U-T San Diego/ZUMA PRESS, U-T San Diego

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July 30, 2012-CORONADO, CA| Michael O’Keefe with some of his father, Arthur F. O’keefe’s memorabilia from his time as a Marine Corps pilot during World War II. |Howard Lipin /UT San Diego). Mandatory to Credit HOWARD LIPIN/U-T San Diego/ZUMA PRESS, U-T San Diego

Last year, Coronado’s Mike O’Keefe obtained a copy of a letter written by a Marine Corps legend, Lt. Gen. Richard Mangrum. It recounts the summer and fall of 1942 during World War II when Mangrum commanded a dive bomber squadron on Guadalcanal.

Full of harrowing missions, the letter is a dramatic read. But Mike was floored by this matter-of-fact sentence: “You may recall that Art O’Keefe had a run of hard luck.”

Mike recalled nothing of the sort.

His father, Marine Corps Lt. Col. Arthur O’Keefe, kept his wartime experiences to himself. For years, Mike tried to pry the tales loose. Then his father had a stroke. The colonel is 91 now, living in the fog of dementia in an Imperial Beach retirement home.

“His mind is gone,” said Mike, a retired Navy lieutenant commander and a veteran flier.

Until he read the Mangrum letter, written in 1985, Mike had no idea that his father participated in the six-month battle for Guadalcanal, a key campaign that began 70 years ago this month.

Guadalcanal, the Allies’ first major offensive of the Pacific war, is usually seen as a land battle, but fighting was fierce in the waters surrounding the island. Both sides needed constant reinforcement and resupply, and most men and materiel had to be delivered by sea. Arthur O’Keefe was among those sent aloft to bomb the Japanese fleet.

Eager to learn more, Mike and his wife, Jackie, began poring over flight logs, citations, books and unpublished manuscripts last year. They consulted historians and interviewed a wry Midwesterner who, a lifetime ago, flew with O’Keefe.

They haven’t been able to recapture the full tale, not by a long sight. But decades after O’Keefe became one of the first American fliers to land on Guadalcanal, his family has won a glimpse of what he did there — and how much those deeds cost.

Vanishing history

The O’Keefe story is unique, yet this effort to preserve a loved one’s story may resonate with countless Americans. Of the 16 million U.S. men and women who served in the military during World War II, only about 1.5 million are still alive — and they are dying at a rate of one every two minutes, often taking their wartime memories to the grave with them.

There was a sense of urgency about all this in May, during an “Honor Flight” to Washington, D.C. About 100 local World War II veterans took the three-day, all-expenses-paid trip, which featured tours of the various memorials. Many were accompanied by family members who pushed wheelchairs, opened doors, and sometimes heard stories for the first time.

At the Washington Navy Yard’s museum, Gene Arthur came across a photo of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. “The last time I saw that guy,” Arthur told his son, “he was hanging upside down.”

Jim Arthur was stunned. He didn’t know his father had been in Milan in April 1945, when Mussolini’s corpse was strung up — a brutal public display confirming the despot’s demise at the hands of Italian partisans.

“A part of history,” Jim said, “and he was there.”

In June, the U-T filmed the oral histories of more than 30 World War II veterans aboard the USS Midway Museum. Many of them came with relatives — spouses, children, grandchildren — who sat right behind the camera so they could listen to the interviews. Sometimes what they heard made them cry.

“I never knew,” the relatives said, over and over.

One of the vets, Richard Stutzman, a P-51 pilot who flew more than 30 missions in the Pacific, died less than two weeks after he shared his story on the Midway. His daughter, Judy Piercey, said having his memories preserved “is such a great gift to us.”

And it can be a gift to the vets, too.

After Gus Apostalos, an Army infantryman, told his story on the Midway, his son, Chuck, wrote in an email: “For the first time that I can remember, he’s been able to talk about what he saw and what he was forced to do. Perhaps now, the nightmares he’s endured since then on a regular basis will end.”

If Arthur O’Keefe has nightmares, he hasn’t shared them with his family, but there have been hints.

When Mike was in high school and expressed a desire to join the military, his dad pushed him toward the Navy rather than the Marines. “I don’t want you on the ground where you can be shelled,” the father said, “all the stuff I went through.”

But what had he gone through?

When the Coronado library was planning a celebration of naval aviation’s centennial in 2011, Mike brought over four or five boxes stuffed with his father’s war papers, photos and flight logs. An archivist flipped through the materials and then stopped.

“Wow!” he exclaimed to Mike. “Your dad was on Guadalcanal!”

Into the sea

Seeking more clues to this mystery, Mike and Jackie cast a wide net. At the Tailhook Association, historian Doug Siegried helped them identify planes, squadrons and airfields that appear in O’Keefe’s photos.

“With these pictures,” Siegfried said, “we were able to provide a timeline on his dad’s career.”

Experts at the San Diego Air & Space Museum helped fill in some blanks. And a group of World War II veterans led the couple to Tom Mohan of Kirkwood, Mo., a wry 90-year-old who flew with O’Keefe at Guadalcanal. Between Mohan’s recollections and the letter from their squadron commander, Mangrum, they traced the outlines of this story.

Born in Annapolis, Md., Arthur O’Keefe grew up in Mission Hills. After joining the Marines, he received his wings and officially became a naval aviator in January 1942. That June, he traveled to Hawaii to join Marine Scout Bomber Squadron 232. If this 21-year-old second lieutenant seemed young and inexperienced, he was an old pro next to his 19-year-old gunner.

“I had never been in an airplane in my life,” Mohan said.

The squadron continued training aboard the carrier Long Island as they steamed west to Guadalcanal. On one flight, the carrier’s landing signal officer waved off O’Keefe and Mohan, warning them to ascend and make another pass. O’Keefe didn’t climb fast enough and his tailhook snagged a wire stretched across the ship’s deck, flinging the plane into the ocean.

The Dauntless dive bomber sank, but its crew was fished unharmed from the sea.

“Chalk up another first for the Marines,” the signal officer said. “He lived to tell the tale!”

But as Mangrum noted in his letter, bad luck seemed to follow O’Keefe. Near Guadalcanal, Japanese aircraft attacked the Long Island.

Dashing to his battle station, O’Keefe slipped and fell. Sore and bruised, he had to persuade his superiors that he could still operate his Dauntless’ rudder pedal and brake, and fly with the rest of his squadron off the carrier.

He won the argument. The next day, Aug. 20, he and Mohan became two of the first American aviators to land at Guadalcanal’s recaptured air strip. “But,” Mangrum wrote, “it was two weeks before he could walk normally.”

On Guadalcanal, “normal” didn’t apply. The fliers landed at the airstrip, re-christened Henderson Field, without tents, extra parts or spare clothing. By night, they slept beneath planes’ wings. By day, they endured Japanese attacks by land and air. The men dined on pancakes for breakfast, lamb tongue patties for dinner and their imaginations for lunch.

“There weren’t any fat guys on Guadalcanal,” Mohan said.

Great courage

In less than a month, O’Keefe flew 29 combat missions. The 29th came on Sept. 14, when his squadron was ordered to bomb Japanese forces coming down The Slot, a sound that divides the Solomon Islands. While the other Dauntlesses took off, Mohan and Keefe couldn’t start their plane. By the time they were airborne, they were alone, flying without backup.

“I’ll tell you as a pilot,” Mike O’Keefe said, “that’s nuts. If he had encountered anything, he was a dead duck.”

But Arthur O’Keefe flew 250 miles, bombed his target and returned to Henderson Field.

“He landed the plane,” Mohan said, “and got out and I never saw him again. I heard he had a breakdown.”

A few days later, O’Keefe was flown off the island. While he was decorated for his service on Guadalcanal and would fight on Iwo Jima, O’Keefe’s “breakdown” cast a shadow across his military career.

What happened? On the day of that last flight from Guadalcanal, Mangrum reported, O’Keefe learned that one of his closest friends had died in action. “Add to this the weeks of strain, inadequate food, rest, hard flying and nervous exhaustion,” the squadron commander wrote. “Art O’Keefe was through — had to be evacuated. Even so, his was a story of great courage, and he was crushed that somehow ‘he had let the squadron down.’

“No such thing, as the rest of us well knew.”

Do we? How much do we know? How many more chances will we have to hear from these eyewitnesses to history?

“This is sort of your final opportunity to talk to people who were there,” Jackie O’Keefe said.

“This,” Mike said, sifting through a box of papers and photographs, seeking pieces to an old puzzle, “is all new to me.”